Film Review

star1-5

The idea of making a film about the American cinema between 1927 and 1933 seems as daunting a prospect as making a film about the entire cinema—in other words, the difference between conceiving the magnitude of a galaxy and the magnitude of the universe. You might as well make a 100-minute film about the Renaissance. Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist neatly sidesteps this unsolvable dilemma by ignoring everything that's fascinating and memorable about the era, focusing instead on a patchwork of general knowledge, so eroded of inconvenient facts that it doesn't even qualify as a roman à clef.

The 1927-1933 period witnessed an almost unquantifiable number of movies whose greatness remains unchallenged, from auteurs such as Josef von Sternberg, F.W. Murnau, John Ford, Ernst Lubitsch, Frank Borzage, King Vidor, Raoul Walsh, Charles Chaplin, as well as, more controversially (since conventional wisdom places their creative peaks as pre-1927), Buster Keaton, Erich von Stroheim, and D.W. Griffith. The Artist simply cannot be bothered with any of those old fossils, and goes full steam ahead with the presumption that the silent cinema was most accurately depicted in Singin' in the Rain, i.e. stolid costume dramas, hysterically acted against cardboard sets.

Jean Dujardin, as likely a candidate for the Best Actor Oscar as anyone else this year, plays George Valentin. The character name refers to the legendary Rudolph Valentino, but his appearance and riches-to-rags storyline clearly lifts from the tragic downfall of silent star John Gilbert. Gilbert, who is now better remembered for his romance with Greta Garbo than his career as an actor, was, during the silent era, one of America's greatest stars. Clashes with MGM head Louis B. Mayer, and his own alcoholism, sent his career into an irreversible, downward spiral. Garbo, who loved him dearly even as he self-destructed, attempted to help him at every opportunity; his penultimate film is also one of her most iconic, Rouben Mamoulian's Queen Christina.

The 1920s and '30s are full of tragic stories like that, of actors and actresses perishing in obscurity, misadventure, scandal, or sheer misfortune. For every screen icon who lived to a ripe, old age, like Lillian Gish and Bette Davis, there's a Jean Harlow (renal failure, 1937), Jeanne Eagels (heroin overdose, 1929), Sidney Fox (overdose of sleeping pills, 1942), or Carole Lombard (airplane crash, 1942), and those are just a few examples. Furthermore, the period of American movies from 1930 to 1934 are now referred to as the "pre-Code era," as it became apparent to certain bodies of American morality that Tinseltown, with its off-screen scandals and on-screen amorality, was becoming a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, and needed to be saved from itself. To say that The Artist wallpapers over this stuff would be an understatement.

Garbo, who lived until 1990, met her star status with varying degrees of combativeness, mostly out of concern for her privacy, undoubtedly disillusioned by the way the town seemed to empty the vessel of Gilbert's stardom and cast it aside. Her reticence was such that it became a selling point for Ninotchka, and she retired from pictures after she made Two-Faced Woman for MGM, in 1941. The Artist pays tribute to Garbo almost with a shrug, when Bérénice Bejo says, "I want to be alone," but Bejo's Peppy Miller is no more Garbo than Dujardin's Valentin is Fred Astaire. Bejo is a delight, but Miller is every starlet of the era, and none of them.

Valentin, on the other hand, embodies Mayer and the gossip rag's version of Gilbert's failure, that he didn't have the voice for talkies, that he couldn't act in talkies, and that he was a wash-up. (Valentin is also an alcoholic, but the movie treats this as incidental comedy fodder.) That, in short, is the crux of The Artist's problem. It would be the easiest thing to forgive Hazanavicious and company's inability to properly assess the subject of "American Cinema, 1927-1933," or "Hollywood's Transition From Silents to Talkies," if the path they chose wasn't defined by a lazy, to the point of contemptuous, attitude toward said subjects, in the vehicle of a rehash of A Star Is Born so anemic, it makes the 1976 Streisand-Kristofferson version look good in comparison.

As an unthinking hodgepodge, The Artist at least has a distinct advantage over the Weinsteins' other nostalgia tchotchke of 2011, My Week with Marilyn, and that's Hazanavicius's competence as a shooter. Whereas Simon Curtis's disaster makes the wrong impression almost immediately, with an opening "film within a film" that's supposed to be a 1950s movie musical but looks more like a music video that Madonna would have rejected in the 1980s, Hazanavicius at least has sense enough to craft his "old movie" scenes to look like old movies. Scarcely a patch on what Guy Maddin can do on a bad day, but let's say USA's Psych decides to do a silent cinema-themed episode to complement their Hitchcock episode or their Telemundo episode. They would do well to call Hazanavicius first.

RELATED ARTICLES

@ David Ehrenstein: Your claim of mugging only applies to the first 10 minutes of the film (and when the newly minted diva puts on an act for the press with big ears), where they're in the thick of showbiz - one an obviously physical performer with vaudeville roots including that damn dog, the other with Hollywood dreams. If anything, Singing in the Rain was more dismissive of Silent film acting by setting up its recreation as madcap, punchline relief sandwiched between scenes of the more alive, musical - buoyant present of 50s.

Your title dropping gets cool crix cred, man. But why expect, for example, two showbiz types to behave in the exact same way as lower middle class Japanese? Even Ozu's cast makes Lionel Barrymore and Gloria Swanson look like ham monsters!

I believe there's a place for criticism that fosters comparative understanding not exclusive the culture of spectatorship - who are a diverse mass with wide range of expectations, tolerance levels, and media literacy. To stand in one lofty, knowledge - bolstered place (which I found intellectually stimulating, but at times stifling for creative work not hinged upon compartmentalizing "phenomena" of the world and its creative labors, into subjectively assigned grading), really covers that sliver of the Knowing Class' taste and preference as the only possible and legit way to filter/decode all that counter one's senses in the theater.

To be brief, one person's idea of silent film (as its entire history of output differed drastically in production style, simple to complex plot structure, acting style, underlying ideologies of class/gender etc.) can't possibly be entirely the same as another's.

Tell you what, the romance in this is way more passionate, subtle and focused than A Woman of Paris. As far as I can tell, all the Silent masterpieces often cited to deride Artist, took many years to arrive at in career context of their respective makers. Is it even appropriate to expect someone to suddenly spit out a bona fide Silent classic as though totally oblivious of its premature death, long buried legacies and influences (as cited by various behind the scenes technicians in countless oral history interviews about using their Silent experience for inspiration behind the 40s noirs, 50s musicals) - like it's some alien who's been cryo - preserved for 90s years.

If anything, more appropriate benchmarks are Mel Brooks/Gene Wilder's stabs at Silent idioms (since Hazanavicius is rooted in homage - parody too), or even how the intended market shapes what of the Silents to re - filter (e.g. Hazanavicius vs Guy Maddin.)

And for all the complaints of manipulation, crass sentimentality...well, if those were never part of the silents even in good old Griffith and endless wallowing of Emil Jannings vehicles, perhaps Hazanavicius invented them? ;P

As for the Astaire dig - my understanding is the Silent has - been is encourage to make it as a dancer (using his physical expression, where his talking isn't as dexterous to be "new talking star"), instead of trying to unseat Astaire. That you think of Astaire only (weren't there other working tap dancers in that era?) and decide to thumb down the Frenchie....hmm wonder why.

Posted by Anonymous on 2012-04-05 20:49:48

Great review. How low have we sunk that this piece of crap is nominated for best film?! I am embarrassed for the academy and all the idiots who have been raving over "The Artist." This movie is so bad it could have been made as a short film on the Osmond's variety hour tv show. Except it would have been more creative and the soundtrack would have made some kind of sense. Far from being a tribute to silent movies it is an out and out insult to them. Charlie Chaplin would kick this movie in the crotch...hard. I didnt care one bit about any of the actors including the dog. I felt no chemistry between the two leads and hoped maybe they would both die in the fire scene....after they shot the dog. I felt like I was being bludgeoned with baseless sentimentality. If the movie could talk it was saying "Look how cute I am a have old cars with white wall tires, dancing girls in 20's skirts, men who wear tuxedos, mansions with butlers and an adorable rags to riches movie star...hey i'm cute look at me look at me" like a delusional untalented idol contestant. This substance - less movie should not have gone to Hollywood. It should have gone in the can. It is a blatantly manipulative and crass attempt to appeal to some gross sentimentality (that evidently exists) in our tasteless, nitwit moviegoers.

Thank You for your accurate review.

Posted by Anonymous on 2012-02-25 22:45:11

Wow...there's a lot of dislike for this movie...No it is not historically accurate. And no, it should not be compared to singing in the rain, why on earth would you? The two movies are not the same level. It was a light fun movie, no more no less...

Posted by Anonymous on 2012-02-24 09:04:13

@ lotsoftechnique - if you bothered to pay attention to the film, George Valentin is French with a heavy French accent. Dare I say his accent would have been a barrier in the first talkies.

This review of the film is too clever for its own good. Criticism for criticism's sake, and nothing more. The film should be critiqued on its own merit, not on what you were expecting from it. And why is the film being compared to SINGING IN THE RAIN??

Posted by Anonymous on 2012-02-03 21:22:36

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you to the small band of people who haven't been swept up in the tsunami of Oscars hysteria!

I have no desire to write a critique of this terribly ordinary picture: it's enough to know that there are others (bless you all) whose critical faculties are still alive and kicking. Somewhere out there, in Cyberspaceland, I have brothers and sisters.

I wish I understood what's happened to the culture. With every passing year there seems to be more of everything, yet less of something. These days I feel grateful if there's one novel, one movie, one play, one tv show and one pop song that makes my heart sing in the span of a year.

Anyway, this little nothing of a movie certainly didn't make the grade. I, for one, won't be cheering when it sweeps the board on Oscar night. That said, is there one movie on the list that deserves better? What a thoroughly awful year this has been for films.

Sometimes one wonders whether the simple fact of getting older (I'm 52) is the problem. Am I just an old fart? But tonight I watched "The Artist" with my mother (75), my niece (23) and her boyfriend (25). We all thought it was a big, fake, smug POS.

Where, oh where, is Pauline Kael when we need her? I loved that woman's work when I was 21 - and she was, well, a lot older than I was. Yes, she could be a b*tch but never, ever without a solid, intellectual backing to her opinions.

I think I may just retire early, do a load of drugs and booze, and just pretend it's not happening...

Posted by Anonymous on 2012-01-28 14:32:02

Thanks for the thoughtful review, and for comments from LaWally, CSilver, Rob Humanick, TStairs and LHR2LAX. I second all of their posts. And I'd like to add what seems to me an obvious - though unanswered - question. Exactly WHY does the hero refuse to work in talking pictures? Does he have a harsh or nasal - sounding voice? No explanation is ever given for his refusal. In one brief scene we see him dismissing talkies as a cheap gimmick, but surely after a very short while anyone with a business sense would have told him to face reality. And with his handsome face, why wouldn't he have promptly done so and continued working?

Posted by lotsoftechnique on 2012-01-22 02:46:12

What "The Artist" takes from "Singin' in the Rain" is less its plot than the scene where Debbie Reynolds tells Gene Kelly that movie acting is "all just dumb show" and proceeds to mug. This style of mugging runs throughout "The Artist."

There are far too many examples of the greatness of silent film than it's possible to name , so I'll just cite two: Marcel L'Herbier's "L'Argent" and Yasujiro Ozu's "I Was Born But. . ." As for early sound film, lend an eye and ear to Sternberg's "Thunderbolt" and Mamoulian's "Applause."

Posted by David Ehrenstein on 2012-01-10 10:49:33

What a ridiculous film. Yes, it was shot well, yes, the cars (and some of the costumes) were exquisite. But it failed on so many levels, from the trivial ("screenwriter" was not spelled like that in the '20s and '30s) to the comical (I've never seen so many lips moving in a silent movie) to the crucial (a total waste of Goodman and Cromwell - talk about characters with no arc: they were characters with barely no character). And let's not even bring up structure. This is an actor who can fill a theater with (silently) screaming fans, then suddenly find himself with four people in the audience, and why? Because Goodman decides (again for no discernible reason, seeing as how he's filling up theaters) to get into talkies. This not only turns Valentin into a has - been, but gives all people everywhere instant amnesia...they don't even recognize him on the street a year later. How about a little effort at story, maybe? Or these things called transitions?

Even reviewers who liked it called it 'slight.' It's so slight, it barely exists. Jaime N. Christle, I registered just to bless you. You'll get flak from myriad people who have never seen a silent movie in their lives and so are impressed by this poor excuse. Don't let 'em get you down. Sooner or later, the "Ordinary People" effect will come and bite this slight little effort in its silent little ass.

Posted by Anonymous on 2012-01-06 23:19:51

I just saw the movie and completely agree with the reviewer. I felt as though I was watching an elongated toothpaste commercial. Stylistically interesting but I felt no sympathy at all for the characters. I felt as though the creators of the movie were trying to manipulate my emotions through well - worn techniques.

Posted by Anonymous on 2011-12-31 17:19:00

The Artist is a truly wonderful film. It is not a hodgepodge disaster, but rather a beautiful masterpiece of tragedy and drama. Although it pays homage to the greatness of silent films, it is not intended to be about the filmmaking renaissance that occurred during the 1920s, but instead a tale that brilliantly details an actor's downfall. It is deeply moving artwork, not a boring historical documentary, and it certainly does NOT hold its subject in contempt. Mrs. Christley is entitled to her own opinion, but I believe that she is being far too narrow minded.

Posted by Anonymous on 2011-12-14 17:53:38

I\'m not offended by the simplified view of the film\'s depicted era, but I was offended by what a pitiful use of style this was. Now I regret have pined for a modern silent film for so long. I\'m happy that this will probably bring about new fans of Griffith and the like, but this struck me as a cheap exercise, a stunt, and not nearly as brilliant as it seems to think it is. Scorsese, show \'em how it\'s done.

Posted by Jesse Cataldo on 2011-12-10 17:04:37

Unlike Bionico, I am not baffled by this review. The review has its cares, and they're important. But such stringency can strain out some real good, intended and received. Direction = point of view. Hazanavicius has one, and while it is highly educated in the dramas of this time, it has a bit less to do with them than with the dramas shared at all times. What becomes important in this film is metaphor - silence, otherness, monkey - suiting, the old meeting the new and how they resolve. I found in this film homage, many still - points of beauty, a key for the beginnings of today's psychology and cinema. The Artist is not a documentary. And anyone thinking that The Artist presents as trashy those films representing silents may want to revisit the montage in his or her own head: Taken at face value, today, these films are trashy, no? As Peppy says, clowning. It's one's experience with the silents that proves otherwise. I saw this film tonight in Hollywood, and the audience was still and reverent at first, getting used to the context; after a bit, they were awed, delighted, cheering. In an industry where Michael Bay rules the banks and film school teachers instruct their students to simplify, the victory of this film - maybe 20 subtitles in an hour and forty minutes? - seems pretty clear.

Posted by Anonymous on 2011-12-03 02:28:11

This is the best critical analysis of the film I've yet seen. I agree - the films meant to represent silent cinema seem trashy; thus the main character hardly seems like an "artist" for acting in them - and there were many artists working in the medium at the time. The film seems more an homage to the now - all - too - familiar plots of later Hollywood, i.e. A Star Is Born, Singing In The Rain, Sunset Boulevard., than a true meditation on or evocation of the splendors of the silent era.

Posted by Anonymous on 2011-12-01 21:00:22

I am completely baffled by this writer's review. It truly misrepresents what this film is. This is a love story that takes place during the last days of the silent film era. It is not a documentary about the history of cinema in the era of American Silent Film in Hollywood! It is this director's narrative take on a silent film star's unwillingness to transition to a new era in film making. It's also about devotion and refusing to let go of the past. Hazanavicius' approach is beautifully cinematic, refreshing and unique. I loved this film and it should not be missed!

Posted by Anonymous on 2011-11-25 04:24:24

Thank you for putting into words my feeling about this film. I wanted to like this movie i really did and the first 35 minutes or so were well done. The complete lift of the 'Singin' in the rain' story started to bother me but i gainfully hung on for the ride. I liked the lead actors performance and thought the photography and art direction was great. BUT this seemingly carefully made souffle of a movie started to collapse in on itself and by the time the first few notes of the music from 'Vertigo' began I was lifted completley away from the film and could see the strings. It seemed that the 'Vertigo' music was probably used as a temp track and then the Director 'had to have the rights to use it' - what a 1950's movie soundtrack had to do with a film set in the 20s - early 30's I have no idea. Your comments of 'indifference' are spot on. I now know why I didn't like this film. As the bandwagon grows for the 'love' of this film I may have to start picketing the oscar voters not to get taken in by a film that pretends to be something it is not.

Posted by Anonymous on 2011-11-17 12:51:25

I don't think it's contempt exactly, but the indifference to the era that actually irks me a great deal more. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN is irreverent, which is neither contemptuous nor indifferent. Also, the period covered in THE ARTIST is 1927 - 1933, i.e. the dawn of sound. Where's the love of early talkies? '27 - '33 might be the very pinnacle of the cinema, in Hollywood and out, but you wouldn't know it.

Posted by Anonymous on 2011-11-16 16:27:00

SINGIN' IN THE RAIN is the greatest musical ever made, so I'm certainly not going to say THE ARTIST is anywhere near those lofty heights. My main point of contention is the assertion that Hazanavicius holds silent film in contempt.

Posted by Anonymous on 2011-11-16 12:25:34

Let's not lose perspective. THE ARTIST is **nothing** like SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Posted by Anonymous on 2011-11-16 04:29:22

What a silly review. You seem to fault Hazanavicius for not adhering strictly to the historical facts and exacting aesthetics of this era of film, as if he is some uneducated nitwit, and I saw this as a deeply felt and loving tribute. You fault him, for example, for besmirching John Gilbert's fine name, and, sorry, but I don't see it. This is pretend. It's not intended to be a fully accurate portrayal of history. I see it as the very opposite of what you term as his "lazy, to the point of contemptuous, attitude toward said subjects." Everyone I know who has seen it thought it was a lovingly crafted tribute and, frankly, deeply moving. The nightmare sound - effects scene alone was worth the price of admission, the homage to the coat - rack in 7th Heaven and Stella Maris, I could go on and on. No doubt you despise Singin' in the Rain for its historical inaccuracies as well.

Posted by Anonymous on 2011-11-15 13:41:03

Yes, Hazanavicius could have made Hollywood Babylon or even remade Sunset Boulevard if he\'d wanted to, and perhaps one day he will. No, it doesn\'t pander to our modern fascination with celebrity scandal and self - destruction but there is plenty \"fascinating and memorable\" about this film all the same. To call this an \"unthinking hodgepodge\" is simply ludicrous. It is one of the most well thought out films I\'ve seen in a very long time, with every detail lovingly and intelligently rendered. I can hardly wait to see it again.